Out of the Woods: Juniper Ridge Bottles the Great Outdoors
I’ve somehow found myself facedown in a Sierra Nevada meadow, my nose buried in the earth in an attempt to gather an olfactive snapshot of the myriad of fragrant flora surrounding me.
The person responsible for my current position is Juniper Ridge founder and longtime proponent of stopping to smell the flowers, Hall Newbegin. His successful line of wilderness perfumes and grooming aids is proof that the old mantra: “Do what you love and the money will follow” actually can work. Though the monetary part took nearly a decade to bear fruit, in the last few years, Newbegin has seen his passion project take off. “In the beginning, there was no business plan,” explains Newbegin.
“I would go out and pick plants, then go home and infuse oil, soaps, and lotions with the scents of Big Sur and the Sierra Nevada. It would take me a week to make 40 soaps and I would sell them at the Berkley Farmer’s Market
for four dollars each.”
But in the past several years Newbegin has transformed his homespun offerings into a higher-end line befitting of the work and care that goes into each creation. His hard-won success means that now he travels with a veritable caravan of fellow foragers, including “chief storyteller” Obi Kaufman and director of R&D Tom Accettola on his exploratory trips to the woods, leaves the larger harvests to others, and works out of a spacious workshop in downtown Oakland.
In his years of turning plants into topicals, Newbegin has become something of an amateur botanist, accruing a vast knowledge of the environs of his native Pacific Northwest and adopted California home. On today’s hike through the High Sierra, he name-drops nearly every blossom and plant lining the trail while offering up fascinating factoids about each. His favorite way to experience nature is lying in a wildflower-strewn meadow or picking handfuls of leaves and blossoms, crushing them in his hands, and inhaling deeply.
Over the course of this walkabout, Newbegin takes note of the heady vegetation that seem particularly iconic to the High Sierra, so when it’s time to whip up the Sierra Granite Face Oil, he knows exactly what plant scents will conjure up images of this wondrous place. And that’s precisely the point of Juniper Ridge’s creations: They’re in the business of producing “fragrances that transport you to these places,” explains Kaufman. Newbegin adds,
“Most people have never been to the spots we harvest from, but our noses are how we see nature, like stereo-colorvision.”
Juniper Ridge is unique in its commitment to using only what they can gather from the wild, rather than approximating the great outdoors with synthetics. So the Big Sur Cabin Spray actually contains the camphor, sage, and bay laurel that Newbegin’s crew harvested on a recent trip to the scenic coastline. And the same goes for the Siskiyou Backpacker’s Cologne, Cascade Glacier Trail Crew Soap, et al. Every product is stamped with a batch number indicating a specific expedition and because the weather and season affects the type and abundance of flora, no two batches will ever smell exactly the same.
“I started Juniper Ridge because I hoped to show people these beautiful things I was seeing outdoors, to bring the mountains into their homes,” says Newbegin. “That’s the most beautiful and satisfying thing we can do.”
